


Read Me Like a Book

by die_traumerei



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, M/M, Steve and Bucky Use Their Words, The Grenade Incident, a little bit of fluff too, intimations of suicidal thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-24
Updated: 2014-07-24
Packaged: 2018-02-10 06:39:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,181
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2014893
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/die_traumerei/pseuds/die_traumerei
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Bucky accidentally becomes a book collector, because when the universe gives you a million biographies about your boyfriend, you go bookcase shopping.  And then he finds out about The Grenade Incident, and the boys actually talk about it like actual adults.  (Somewhere, Sam sheds a proud tear.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Read Me Like a Book

There are a lot of things Bucky loves about the future.  Like, there’s all the stuff he and Steve say at press conferences — no polio is pretty great (though their reaction to learning about the anti-vaccination movement was…well, apparently Bucky breaking down live on the evening news when he talked about the summers they closed the swimming pools and kids in iron lungs and how he was always so, so afraid because in those days Steve seemed to catch everything going around — that had jump-started the rapid death of that particular stupidity), and there’s a lot less open racism, and he can hold Steve’s hand walking down the street and no one even blinks.  
  
So there’s the big stuff that’s important, and then there’s the stupid stuff, like how he posts videos of kittens to Steve’s Facebook page at least once a day and he and Clint basically spend their lives popping up out of hiding places and yelling ‘Do it for the Vine!’ at each other, cameras in hand, and Natasha even showed him how Pinterest works so now he’s got a place to collect all the recipes he wants to try out.  He likes being able to send Steve a text wherever he is in the world, and get a reply in minutes, instead of waiting weeks for letters to pass back and forth.  The future’s pretty cool.  
  
But his favorite thing about the future (this week anyway) is that basically everyone and their grandma have written a book about Captain America.  He appreciates the philosophical and political treatises (and read one or two of the best — not his style, but good stuff), but the biographies.  Oh, the biographies, especially the really bad ones that he has to work to track down because they were printed on cheap paper about forty-five seconds after Captain America went under the ice because there is no tragedy in the world that someone can’t turn a buck on.  And there is no half-literate hagiography that Bucky won’t pay a truly shocking sum of money for.  And then read aloud.  He once got Steve to hide under a table, fingers in his ears, while Tony and Clint howled with laughter.  
  
Pepper helps him track them down; really, it’s her fault that he started reading them in the first place.  

  
  
***  
  
It was one of the bad days.  Steve was off being Captain America somewhere in South Dakota, and Bucky’d dragged himself out into the big common room in Stark Towers, because he promised Sam he’d leave their bedroom at least once a day and Sam has this ability to look even more heartbreakingly disappointed in people than Steve does.  So he was basically dressed, but was also curled up in a huge blanket that could have been made for the Hulk and crammed into one corner of the sofa while rain beat against the glass walls.  It was one of those days that hurt, when all the people he’d been felt broken inside of him, and he couldn’t think what the right thing to do anymore was.  And it’s not that Steve fixes all of that, or even makes it easier, but it’s just knowing that there’s someone there who will make sure he doesn’t hurt himself or anyone else and will love him through the bad days and good alike. So Steve being gone didn’t help any, either.  
  
“Hello, James.”  Pepper’s voice was always soft and warm.  The first time he had come to Stark Towers he was covered in blood and grime and he’s pretty sure his hair had last been washed during the Clinton Administration, and Pepper Potts hadn’t even blinked an eye, merely shaken his hand and asked what he’d like to drink and sat him and Steve down and brought them lemonade like they were boys again.   
  
“Ma’am.  Uh.  Pepper.  Sorry.”    
  
She just smiled though, and crossed the stupidly-large room, because Tony doesn’t actually seem to believe in tiny, cozy rooms that one can hide out in. “May I join you?”  
  
Bucky physically couldn’t take up any less space, but he nodded, and tried a smile.  It sort of worked.  
  
“Thank you.  I found something I think you’ll like, by the way.”  She reached into her bag and pulled out —  
  
Oh it could not be real.  They’ve got a Bucky Bear holding pride of place in the middle of their bed, but Steve had not mentioned the plush Captain America bear.  Or the accompanying children’s storybook, for that matter.  Bucky grinned and wriggled an arm free of his cocoon to reach for them.  “This is amazing.  This was just in a store?”  
  
Pepper nodded.  “Yup.  The newest release.”  
  
“Wait, there are more of these things?”  
  
“About sixty years’ worth,” Pepper said.  “Of the books, I mean.  Well, probably the toys too, but definitely the books.  I think Tony had some of them growing up.”  
  
Bucky had Cap Bear tucked against his side and was starting to leaf through the picture book.  “Oh my God, tell me he kept them.  This is amazing.”  It actually kind of was — a story about Steve before he was Captain America.  It was actually sort of an accurate depiction of a summer day in Brooklyn in 1927, and the illustrations were, he had to admit, beautiful.  There’s no Bucky in it, but he was more than okay with that right that moment.  
  
“I think they’re in storage, but I’ll see if I can get them.”  Pepper slipped off her shoes and tucked her feet up under the edge of the blanket.  She was, like, three feet away from Bucky because again with the Hulk-sized swathe of fabric, but it felt nice to be sharing his blanket.  Friendly.  Bucky paged slowly through the book, the memories presented this way a thing to savor, to treasure.  
  
“Pepper, thank you.  This is fantastic, really.”  He looked up and smiled at her, for real this time.  “Are there a lot of books about Steve?  Not just picture books, I mean.”  
  
“You’re very welcome, and I’m glad you like it.  And yes, Captain Rogers is something of a one-man publishing industry.  I can get you a list of everything if you like?”  
  
“Yes, please?”  The tension drained out of his shoulders, and when a huge thunderclap sounded, they both jumped — and then laughed.  “Thank you.  Truly.”  
  
Pepper just smiled, and leaned against the back of the sofa.  “Is that what it was really like?”  
  
“Yeah.  Well, it was grubbier and hungrier.  And Steve was actually skinnier than what they drew, if you can believe it, but they got most of it right." And they talked a little about growing-up things, and Pepper told him about being a girl in the seventies, and Bucky told her what he could remember his sisters doing in the twenties and — it was nice.  It was just really nice.  
  
Later, he wandered through Tony’s lab because he hadn’t recreationally annoyed anyone in like a day, and he informed Tony that Pepper could do so much better than him.  
  
“Believe me Barnes, I know.”  Bucky appreciated the look in Tony’s eye, and decided to not get JARVIS to wake Tony up with 'Rocket Man’ on a loop the next morning like he’d been planning to.  
  


***

  
So Pepper somehow comes up with a complete list of every Captain America book written in English (and she’s working on the ones in all the other languages Bucky can read), and they work their way through it, starting with the picture books — including Tony’s, which have the additional bonus of some hand-drawn fan art that Bucky carefully scans and tucks away for future use.  Steve comes home from South Dakota filthy and exhausted but unhurt, and he laughs for whole minutes to see Cap Bear and Bucky Bear on their bed together, and Bucky informs him that Stark Towers will shortly have the most extensive collection of popular non-fiction on Captain America in the world.  He’s already ordered the new bookcase.  
  
“Maybe I should start collecting books about Sergeant James Barnes, huh?” Steve says, pulling Bucky down to lie beside him.    
  
“Be sort of a sad collection.  There’re a few books about the Howling Commandos, and I think someone wrote a crappy biography in the 60’s, but that’s it.”    
  
“Hmph.”  Steve nuzzles his hair, falling asleep even as he’s still talking.  “Well that’s no fun.”  
  
“Shh.  Go to sleep.”  There’s no need for him to scold — Steve’s already knocked out, and Bucky better start cooking soon because Steve is going to wake up ravenous, but he takes a moment the wrap himself around the other man, breathe in the reek of drying sweat and gunpowder and Steve underneath it, because the books are fun, sweet and occasionally hilariously bad, but they’re nothing like the real thing.  
  
***  
He works his way through the picture books and young adult books quickly, and then starts on the more scholarly tomes. (Not formally agreeing to join the Avengers just yet apparently frees up a lot of reading time.  He’s tempted to drag it out until he finishes the whole list, but he also has a bet going with Clint that he can get Steve to have sex with him in the Quinjet, so.) They’re fascinating; many of them less about Steve himself and more about what Captain America meant to the nation, the kind of symbol he became.  The tone noticeably changes when it’s a living man being written about — and, of course, a lot of what they did is unclassified now, so there's a bit more to pick over.  
  
Which is probably why this is the first time he’s come across the grenade story.  
  
It’s in Doris Kearns Goodwin’s _Brooklyn Boy Made Good_ , and Bruce has already got first dibs to borrow it when he’s done.  Bucky’s impressed with what he’s read so far when he gets to the passage about Phillips’ little test, and Steve curling his tiny frame around the grenade and his vision actually goes black for a moment, little stars sparking around the edges.  
  
“JARVIS, where is Captain Rogers, please?”  The Soviets sucked at everything else, but at least he can hold his voice steady under any conditions.  Even my-best-friend-jumped-on-a-grenade-and-hasn’t-bothered-to-mention-it conditions.  
  
“He has just left the gym, Sergeant, and appears to be walking towards your apartment.  Shall I tell him you want to speak to him?”  
  
“No, thank you.”  Bucky’s eyes narrow.  He is going to kill Steve.  Then he’s going to go back in time and kill Phillips.  Finally, he’s going to find out who made sure he never heard this hilarious little story, and kill them.  Then he’s going to go back further in time and kill Phillips again.  Tony will totally build him a time machine, he loves a challenge.  
  
Steve’s slick with sweat when he comes in the door, his t-shirt stuck to his chest (Bucky notices with the part of his brain not accessing all the ways he knows to creatively kill people because he’s still human and male and he can file away the mental image of sweaty, practically-naked Captain America for another time), and he looks up and grins that famous grin until Bucky stalks across the room and shoves the book into his face.  “Explain.”  
  
“Huh?”  Steve reads the passage and — Bucky can barely believe this — he chuckles.  He gives an honest-to-God old-man _chuckle_.  Bucky wonders if this is what an aneurysm feels like.  “Oh boy, yeah, that.  Apparently that’s what convinced Phillips that I was the best candidate for the serum.”  
  
“Steve,” Bucky grinds out.  “You jumped on a grenade.”  
  
“A fake one, yeah.”  
  
“You didn’t know that at the time!”  It is approximately at this point that the look on Steve’s face reveals that he’s just figured out that Bucky is Not Amused by the Camp Lehigh Comedy Hour that was the Captain America selection process.  
  
“Buck, hey.  Hey, it’s okay, it all worked out.”  He cups Bucky’s shoulder with his hand, soothing.    
  
“No, it’s not okay.  Steve, you could’ve been killed!”  Bucky shrugs off the hand, backs up.  “How could you?”  
  
“I just…had to.  Didn’t we have this conversation in 1943?”  Steve is quieter now, rubbing the back of his head like he does when he’s worried.  “Bucky, don’t be angry.”  
  
“Shut up.”  Bucky looks up at him, eyes blazing.  “I will damn well be angry.  Steve, when does it stop?  Jumping on the grenade, piloting the plane into the water, what next?”  _When will you need to sacrifice yourself again, and leave me?_   He refuses to ask the question, because he’s terrified of the answer.  
  
Steve rubs his eyes and sighs.  “I’m sorry.  That’s a fair question.”  He looks up at Bucky and smiles sadly.  “Can I get a shower first?  Then we’ll talk.  We need to talk.”  
  
Bucky nods, and steps out of the way like Steve couldn’t push right through him if he wanted.  They have worked very, very hard at talking, learned when to push and when to back down. (Sam is secretly really proud of them, although he expresses it by loudly reminding them to use their words.) They both struggle to find the right things to say, to the point where Steve sometimes goes mute and draws the answers to Bucky’s questions because that’s the only way he can deal with it all.  (Bucky has drawn things too, horrible things that make them both cry and wrap around each other so tight that Bucky has bruises on his ribs, but he can usually come up with some kind of words although sometimes they’re only Russian or German.) So Bucky makes sure there’s a sketchbook and pencils on the coffee table, and he makes them coffee and tries to begin to put the huge, dark hole inside of him into words.  
  
Steve comes out wearing one of the more subdued Stark Industries t-shirts and long flannel pants Bucky gave him last Christmas, because he’s got a tactical mind like that.  
  
“Hey.”  He drops down onto the floor at Bucky’s feet, back against the sofa, and Bucky slides down the join him.  They can both be tactical, thanks.  
  
“Would you do it now?  If someone threw a grenade into a crowd, would you jump on it now?”  
  
“No.” Steve’s answer is immediate.  “My shield could easily absorb the explosion.  Safer to just throw it on top and get the civilians as far away as possible.”  
  
“What if you didn’t have your shield?”  
  
Steve is quiet for a long time, and Bucky forces himself to hold still, to wait.  Steve needs to think his answers through, and Bucky tries to appreciate that.  It’s very hard, when he’s so afraid of the truth, afraid that Steve will quietly say ‘yes’, and that that might break Bucky in two.  He can’t.  He _can’t_ do this, he can’t love a man who will give his life away so surely, he can’t love a man who might not come back from the next mission because he’s so fucking noble and self-sacrificing.  His heart won’t stretch to that.  (Even if that is so much of why he loves Steve, some tiny corner of his mind whispers, the corner that finished Steve’s fights because everyone was bigger than Steve, but no one hit harder than James Barnes.)  
  
“…No.” Steve says, and he practically whispers it, and he’s trying not to cry.  “No.”

  
Bucky lets out a soft breath, and rests his head on Steve’s shoulder.  “Then what’s changed?”  If Steve says it’s him, he’ll know he’s being lied to.  They loved each other just as fiercely before they were reunited in this strange time, they’ve agreed on this.  Romantic love, the love of friends, the love of brothers in arms — different mechanics, different ways of showing it, but burning just as intense, always.   
  
“You remember what I said, when you went off to war?”  Steve asks, his voice soft and thick, like he’s pushing the words out one by one, fighting to be able to talk.  “That so many guys were giving their lives because they believed in…in America, in fighting the Nazis, in making the world safe again.  And I had just as much right as any of them to go over there, and choose that sacrifice too.”  
  
“I remember.”  That stupid kid — well, they were both stupid kids then — too skinny and sick and disabled and definitely too dumb to know how to keep himself safe.  Of course Steve was gonna be Captain America.  Of course.  
  
“I was nothing, in the camp.  Couldn’t keep up.  Couldn’t — well, you can guess.  But I could do that.  I could absorb just enough of the shockwave that maybe someone who would have died, didn’t.”  Steve’s laugh is bitter, and it hurts to listen to.  “Not that I was gonna stop much.  Be like shooting a bullet through a sheet of paper.”  
  
Bucky moves his head to kiss Steve’s shoulder.  One of the side effects of reading a dozen biographies of his best friend is he realizes a little more how much pain Steve always hid, how much harder everything was for him.  He got it then, he did, but he gets it a little better now.  
  
“So.  That was…the sacrifice would have had meaning.  I guess the only thing I had to give, was myself.  And to bury that plane, that had meaning.  And we were winning the war, didn’t think I’d still be needed afterwards.”  Steve sighs, and rests his head against Bucky’s.  “But now…I have other things to give.  Other things to sacrifice. It works out a little better.  No, I wouldn’t fall on the grenade.  I’d get the civilians away, do what I could to limit damage.”  He smiles, a real smile this time..  “And it’s not all on me.  Bruce can Hulk out in seconds, and he'd barely feel the explosion.  Tony can summon that ridiculous armor out of nowhere, I’m not sure Thor _can_ die…”  He turns his head and kisses Bucky’s brow.  “You’d probably spot the guy carrying the stupid thing in the first place and save us all a lot of trouble.  There’s no need for Captain America to blow himself to bits anymore.”  
  
“And Steve Rogers?”    
  
Steve hesitates again, and reaches for the sketchbook.  His hands are steady and don’t shake, and Bucky watches over his shoulder.  Steve draws himself as he was, the skinny guy with a gnawed-on pencil and a scrap of paper.  He’s sat on the ground, drawing on a book balanced in his lap.  And then he draws Bucky — Bucky as he is now, long hair and a metal arm, looking serious and leaning over to watch what Steve’s drawing.  And then Thor joins them, strong and tall behind the two men, and he’s got that amazing smile that’s like a gift every time.  Natasha appears, sat on Steve’s other side, Clint perched above her. And then Tony and Bruce, and Sam above them all, wings spread, their whole weird, wonderful team.    
  
He looks over at Bucky, and manages to find the words.  “Same answer.”

**Author's Note:**

> I swear I meant this to be funny when I started. AND THEN BUCKY HAPPENED.
> 
> My deepest apologies to Doris Kearns Goodwin who would probably come up with a title a thousand times better than what I did.
> 
> Hey! I'm on Tumblr! http://dietraumerei.tumblr.com/


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